Nice Sunday at Park

It was nice Sunday. Akiva brought a bucket and shovel to a central park in SIP.He is waving at a cleaning lady.There were already many kids at park.

Jesse's Passover in Suzhou

Shmuroh Matzoh - a traditional hand-made round matzoh from Israel

Haya's Mediterranean in Shanghai

We went to Shanghai to pick up a Passover matzah at Shanghai Jewish Center.
We had a lunch at Haya’s Mediterranean. When we lived in Shanghai two years ago, we often went there to eat their fresh homos and pita sandwich. We also bought their bagels and halla a lot. Haya and her family are from Israel. She seems in charge of the café. Her son takes care of the bakery. Once she invited us to their Rosh Hashana. She had about twenty good looking Israeli guests. She served excellent excellent food which normally we don’t eat at Jesse’s family for Rosh Hashana. They also had a great apple cinnamon halla which I never forget.Today we ordered the same stuffs, fresh homos and pita sandwich. They had new desert, Baklava which I had to try. These all tasted delicious, especially the baklava brought me back to the memory with my good friend Ingrid in Oakland. Once she took me to a wonderful bakery. We had a honey dripping baklava which also I cannot forget.

Akiva is eating a baby pita just like mom.

Simon’s Kitchen Bakery

I liked a Simon’s Kitchen Bakery in Suzhou Garden Villa, SND. Their check out girl was super nice. They have bagels (not American style), decent breads and cakes. I went there at least one a week. When never I went, there was hardly any other customer. It was very quiet. Location was almost hidden. Soon they are moving to SIP. SIP will have three Simon’s Kitchen Bakeries (currently SIP has two).

Simon’s Kitchen Bakeries in SIP are very popular, especially in Singa Plaza. It is good location at the corner of restaurant mall and cross the street from Starbucks. This Simon’s Kitchen Bakery is more like a diner. You can sit and enjoy their western food, coffee and cakes and pies. They also sell breads. However I don’t like to buy breads there. Everyone smokes after food or with coffee. Cigarette smoke may not affect the taste of bread, but I don’t feel right to buy bread at smoky bakery.



Simon’s Kitchen Bakery in ZuoAn shopping mall doesn’t sell bread, but they have food and coffee. Today we tried their lunch buffet. It didn’t look good, but we were hungry. We decided to give a try. It was all you can eat buffet with coffee and deserts. Buffet menu change daily. Today we had fruit salad, some Chinese tofu, fish dishes, Thai style yellow carry, fried pork, spaghetti, and fried rice etc. I liked the tofu dish a lot. We tried all their deserts, black forest cake, pudding, cream puff, fruit pie, could be cheese cake, and ice creams. Their cakes weren’t moisture enough. The pudding didn’t have caramel source and very eggy. I never had a good cream puff in Suzhou. Their deserts didn’t satisfy my very very sweet teeth. Yet I thought over all it was good buffet. I will come back here again. The atmosphere was present. They have a loft style 2nd floor which is the smoking area (I thought it makes sense). The waitresses were happy. It was also beautiful day. They had out door tables. Eating under nice sun light made lunch taste better.

New Digital Camera

We finally bought a new digital camera two months after I dropped the old one on the hard stone floor and broke it. Jesse took it to two repair shops but we came to conclusion to buy a new one.


Here is the first shot at the central park in SIP, Suzhou.



Saturday we went to a dim sum restaurant, HiYi Dynasty, several blocks away from our new apartment. We rode a bike there. We had (we think) typical dim sum dishes; shrimp dumpling, seafood shumai, daikon cake and rice porridge. They had good service. When Akiva broke their plate, the floor manager ran up and first asked us if Akiva is OK (most restaurants we go don’t have this type of manner). We think some of the dim sum at GuTing restaurant tastes better but we will come back to HiYi again... at least I thought when I was at the restaurant. One hour after the lunch I started having a bad headache. I was also extremely thirsty. I know there was lot of MSG on their food. Jesse didn’t have the symptom. I ate The rice porridge and Jesse didn't...that might have had a lot of MSG or Jesse is just insensitive. Anyway now I don’t want to go back there again. Jesse does though.

HiYi Dynasty - XingDuo Center 1F SuHui Road 128



Sunday we went to an inexpensive Korean restaurant in the GuiDo Neighborhood Centre. There are many Korean restaurants in SIP but most the Korean restaurants are middle to high price from our standard. When we were in Shanghai, we went to a good North Korean restaurant which serves bipbimba (spicy rice in a hot metal pot) for RMB10 ($1.25). The Korean restaurant in the GuiDo Neighborhood Centre has RMB15 of bipbimba and Korean Buffalo wings for free appetizer. Their place was Sunday dinner crowded. It seemed popular among people like us [Jesse edit: meaning non-rich people who like to eat at cheap restaurants]. We will go back there and try their cold noodle.